Microtransactions - What Does Good Monetization Look Like? - Extra Credits

Hello once again, I'd like to welcome back our good buddy Aaron Siegel who's here to help us do some talking about Microtransactions, let me begin by saying CCP, why are you doing this to me? I'm trying to come in here and talk about the potential and positives for microtransaction game models and you got to go and just alright, for those of you who don't know already a little while back EVE Online adopted a micro payment system where you can buy clothes And accessories to make your avatar look cooler like this monocle here as of the time of this recording that monocle costs $70 I wish I was making that up. I'm sorry. I know we're always trying to be the calmer voice It just kills my soul. Every time I see a major company screw-up microtransactions this badly a it's not rocket science James has been called into the monetization design on a few projects. And yeah, it's tough It's real work, but I mean to bomb it this badly takes some real effort and be microtransactions aren't going anywhere They're probably the way of the future for our industry steam recently implemented broad free-to-play support we've already seen the online gaming world embrace the power of micro transactions and I guarantee you the next generation of PSN and XBLA will support in-game micro payments as well many people may rail against the emerging micro transaction trend but in and of itself I don't actually think it's a bad thing when done well I think micro transactions are better for the consumer and for the industry They let the consumer try out titles before they invest set their own payment scale and potentially acquire assets That'll go up in price And they also let the industry avoid a lot of problems with piracy without having to resort to terrible DRM additionally a micro transaction model allows developers to cater both to the consumer who wants to spend five dollars and the consumer who wants to Spend 500 rather than just trying to sell everything regardless of value to the consumer who wants to spend $60 and this is all great But only if we do it right but right now we seem to be heading in the other direction Companies seem to be interpreting micro transaction to mean free-for-all gouge fest And if we don't cut it out that green is gonna get the better of us Games that could make money in the current market will sink under the weight of untenable prices and player backlash Granted if we players keep proving that we're willing to buy $70 monocles The industry is going to keep trying to sell them to us. That's our fault, but that's a much harder problem to fix So let's just keep this focused on the industry for now So what do we need to do to make micro transactions work in games first? Let's handle the perceptual shift I feel like I've been saying this a lately but the industry needs to see players as something other than the enemy Somebody a TA once asked James how many players who are not paying me? Do you expect me to buy bandwidth for James? His answer was as many as you can get here's why in a multiplayer game players are content we all know that no matter how good the mechanics of a game are it's no fun to play if it's a ghost town if You can't get a game or find players to group with the experience withers on the vine So if you're gonna make free-to-play games you're gonna have to actually be ok with people playing it for free after all ask a world of warcraft players why they pay to Keep playing or don't switch to a competing MMO and the answer is often because my friends play We have to make playing for free actually viable in our games and just accept some of the associated costs Because you know some of those free players may eventually decide to buy some stuff But without them around no one will be monetizing your game. Which brings me to my second point Let players earn every type of currency in your game Even the ones they can also pay for the Koreans have this down and to my mind that this seems mind-blowing ly straightforward But it's something we have an almost universal revulsion to in the US for some reason There's actually no good business reason to stop free players from earning pay currency in games You need to have it be a remarkably slow process But there's no business Justification for preventing someone from gaining access to all the items in your game if they're actually willing to put in the time and dedication To earn it in-game now Usually when James first tells game companies that they always Recoil in horror and tell them that no user is gonna pay for their game if they can just earn currency while playing That is strictly not true giving away currency has four major advantages one players feel as though the game is fair and it's not gonna make them pay at any point many players are turned off by the idea of free to pay microtransaction games because of that nagging feeling that the whole model is just a scam to weasel more money out of you but if players Know they have the option to earn all the stores items and no one's forcing them to pay anything They're a lot more likely to begin playing in the first place - using the in-game store and free-to-play titles is sort of a magic barrier for many players It's something that seems difficult and foreign and unnecessary to many people until they actually use it across the board Microtransaction games report that as soon as a player uses the store once they're way more likely to monetize again Many of you may have had this experience with steam or XBLA Think about how much inertia it took to get you to download steam and make your first purchase or buy your first pack of DLC second time came a lot easier Didn't it number three if you've balanced earning pay currency in your game anywhere in the ballpark of well? Many players will eventually decide that their time is more valuable than the small amount of money It takes to purchase currency BAM You just converted some of your players into paying users and the best part is that they feel more comfortable giving over money at that Point either because they're already deeply invested in the game or simply because they feel the games giving them a fair shake Again the choice to make these purchases is theirs the game never forced it upon them For if you don't do this you effectively exclude everyone without a credit card or without disposable income and that means you're often cutting out a big chunk of the 14 to 21 year old players who make up such an avid part of gaming communities often These are the guys who provide ancillary services to games such as maintaining wiki's and putting out YouTube videos losing These players has a big cost next never sell power This is seriously micro trans 101 But we still seem to have this temptation to try to squeeze the maximum amount of money out of our players by selling them things Which alter the balance of gameplay? this is the Absolute quickest way to make players feel like you're taking advantage of them because selling power really does force players to pay to play after All when you're balancing your game Which players you're gonna cater to the people who are monetizing or the people who aren't what you want to sell is Convenience things like extra bank space and character loadout save slots. Those are great. They're utterly unnecessary And at first every player feels like the default amount is gonna be plenty but sooner or later Anybody who's dedicated to the game is gonna find it totally worth a few dollars to have some of those extra features Even things like selling leveling speed is okay It's not as good as selling more supplementary perks, but it just means that players blaze through the content faster It doesn't unbalance your game or affect any of the other players All it does is make it more convenient for some of your players to see the later stages of your game if they choose Just never sell power Next always keep your monetization plan in mind as you build the game You can use monetization to incentivize the type of player behavior. You think will create the best overall experience There are several Korean mmo's out there that only allow players a limited number of lives each day Once they're out of lives they have to pay to refill them or they can't play until their lives refresh the following day this ends Up forcing the player base to get better at the game which in turn at least in the developers Minds creates a better gaming experience likewise xanga usually offers the player the option of paying or Getting their friends to help which encourages the player to bring in more of their social network Expand the community rather than paying though arguably. That one is a wee bit more evil If you think about how you're gonna monetize as you build you can use it to make the game more enjoyable make paying more palatable and make the whole experience feel less disjointed and tacked on rather than figuring out how you're gonna monetize near the End of production you should also never ever ever Split your community say you've got a multiplayer game and you only allow paying players to partake in certain Maps or specific zones You've not only effectively decreased the size of your community, but you've also cordoned off paying players from the non paying players Which is a terrible idea because one of the best ways to get non paying players to eventually pay for in-game goods is to have them hanging out with the Paying guys finally market test your prices for God's sakes. We market tests everything else We market test the background color for our box art not thoroughly market testing a make or break feature like how much your items should? Cost is downright criminal. And yes CCP I'm staring at you through my monocle die right now and to everybody out there in industry land no matter how good this business model Looks both in terms of earnings or even potentially better player service Just remember this it isn't the right business model all the time You wouldn't build an entire game and wait until the last minute to choose the input device So don't do that with your monetization scheme either Microtransaction games will be better if the micro transaction elements are built into the design from the ground up rather than just being layered on Top that's the only way it's gonna be better for the consumer the developer and the distributor But even if this is the way that most games end up going in the future it's still important to make sure that it's the right tool for the job because some games are just always gonna make more sense as Subscription or pay up front style games and that's never gonna change Anyway Thank You Erin for helping us out and thanks for watching. See you next week

Channel: Extra History

Views: 816,102

Keywords: allison theus, daniel floyd, extra credits, game design, game designer, game developer, game development, game industry, games, games industry, gaming industry, james portnow, video game, video games, microtransactions, monetization, mobile games, how to make a mobile game, how to make an iphone game, how to make an android game

Id: WXA559KNopI

Length: 9min 7sec (547 seconds)

Published: Wed May 16 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/Andromansis]

Ok, so is there anything above and beyond the video that we need to discuss here?

[u/cjlj]

I don't know who those people are, but they seem to think that they know what they are talking about so i assume they have some expertise in the area of free to play. So i'm going to ask, where is their evidence? It's all very well making these blanket statements about what you should and shouldn't do in free to play games, but i don't see any evidence to back up what they are saying.

As a counterpoint, the guy in this presentation breaks their "Number 1 Golden Rule" but changing his game from a model where you can earn everything as a free to play player, and only bought cosmetic items and XP boosts, to a model where you could pay for weapons with better stats and their revenue doubled overnight.

http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/paying-to-win

As much as i hate to say it, until they can provide evidence that their way works better, this is just a typical reddit circlejerk over someone who agrees with our worldview.